


til the winter's come and gone

by bruised_fruit



Series: headcanon compliant [25]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Candlenights, Guilt, Implied Past Abuse, Light ableism, Snowball Fight, decade era, past death, referenced sexuality/genitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21903556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruised_fruit/pseuds/bruised_fruit
Summary: Lucretia never liked the cold.
Relationships: implied Brad Bradson/Magic Brian, implied past Lucretia/OFC/OFC, implied past Maureen/Lucretia, past Davenport/Lucretia
Series: headcanon compliant [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653871
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	til the winter's come and gone

**Author's Note:**

> candlenights!! *throws confetti while blocking you from seeing my massive "the crew spends candlenights in a cabin one cycle and lucretia and davenport attempt to fuck in a bathtub but fail horribly and also i made lucretia talk for probably too long of a time about a very specific bath bomb she's using. no spoilers but it has CLOVES in it???" fic wip that i couldn't finish in time*

Lucretia never liked the cold. 

Nature was ugly with the greenery stripped away and all the animals hiding. The snow always got dirty fast, and it was slushy and muddy for an intolerably long time. 

And the sensation of cold was horrible. It was the opposite of being loved, and cozy, and safe. It was like dying. 

Freezing to death was like falling asleep, but with more terror. Standing in the cold after that cycle reminded her of that terror, the hyper-awareness of one’s mortality while simply existing in a world that does not want you alive. 

But even before, the sensation was always uncomfortable. Trekking to school in layered sweaters, the cold penetrated Lucretia to the bone, and she always hated shivering while she was trying to work, as much of an annoyance as the need to eat or pee or the throb of a persistent erection. The audacity of her various bodily functions, really, to distract her from writing or sketching. 

The winter was always a reminder of something bad, and Lucretia gladly accepted any distraction from it. Any source of warmth to counteract the cold. 

When she was young, her mother would knit her sweaters and bake “healthy” cookies full of nuts and seeds and dried cranberries in the winter. She would tuck Lucretia tightly into bed under two quilts, the blankets seemingly flush to every inch of her body. She would give her a kiss on the forehead after reading her a story, and that would keep Lucretia warm enough through the winter, alongside the small stuffed animals her mother would make her every Candlenights. 

After her mother died, her father stopped heating the house. 

“We don’t need it,” he’d said, and of course eight-year-old Lucretia was smart enough to know that meant that they could no longer afford it. It was better anyway to spend hours staying after after school, and then the library, before coming home. She preferred being away from him, even in fair weather. 

At 15, she left home. She left her emancipation papers on the kitchen table and packed up her few belongings: four sets of clothing, her art supplies, a couple old journals, and her stuffed animals. 

It was the dead of winter. She moved in with two friends who were renting out a small warehouse on the edge of the town. It wasn’t warm or insulated at all, but the rent was cheap, and they had each other for warmth. 

When she worked alone in the city, first doing freelance journalistic work and painting portrait commissions, then conducting interviews for biographical work, she always lived alone. Her apartment was decent and, importantly, well-heated. But she was almost always alone there. Coming home to no one was a different kind of cold, and she didn’t like it much. Each Candlenights meant nothing more than a mark of how much time had passed since the last.

It was plenty cold during the century. Merle clumsily knitted Lucretia socks, and the twins would make her hot cocoa most cycles. And she almost always had someone to cuddle with, her captain’s warm body nestled against hers nearly every night. Every Candlenights that the crew had together turned into a celebration, a break from their constant struggle and a time to love each other wholeheartedly. For everything painfully cold the century offered her, her family always made it better. 

Until after cycle 92. Even on the plane that never dipped below 75, she felt so cold inside. Everything that used to bring her warmth just left her emptier than ever. 

The last Candlenights before they found Faerun and made their weapons, it had been frigid, snowing for days on end. She stayed outside too long, until Magnus found her on the deck of the ship and brought her in, and even Barry’s gift to her, a small metal-bound journal embossed with stars and moons, brought her no warmth. 

She had sought out some kind of comfort during the war they started--the war she let happen--with Davenport, who might have needed comfort more than her. Broken, they were both so broken, and their hearts were cold and dead no matter how fiercely they clutched each other. She was nearly numb when she took his mind away, and once he was gone, she knew she would never find any warmth again. 

The decade was void of it. Winter with Maureen had been nice, but looking back on it all only hurts. Once Maureen was gone, everything was cold again, even the dull light that Davenport still emanated, the sliver of who he used to be shining through. Every night, even during the holidays, she could only just drag the husk of her body around, making sure he ate and brushed his teeth, then tucking him into bed. Filling her late hours with paperwork, then passing on top of her blankets in her quarters, somehow colder than the steel quarters of the ship. 

She could only hope that the physicality of all this would pass, or fade, at least. Spring was around the corner, nearing faster than the Hunger. 

Winter on the moonbase was unforgiving but unavoidable. They needed to place it low enough in the atmosphere that inhabitants could breathe, and that meant that there was heavy snowfall every Candlenights season. Davenport seemed to like it at least, and it was good for morale. Lucretia watched him play in the snow with Killian, a new recruit who he had taken a liking to. She was great with him, too, and it was endearing to watch her rolling around in the snow, making orc-sized snow angels beside his much smaller ones. 

Brad from HR appeared beside Lucretia, nearly startling her. She just barely maintained her composure, nodding at him. He joined her in observing Davenport and Killian play, then asked quietly, “Have you heard any word from Brian?” 

Lucretia grimaced. “No, not yet…” 

His shoulders dropped slightly. “Well, we knew what we were getting into,” he said, but without bitterness. 

She felt a surge of guilt but said nothing. 

They watched the other pair play on the quad for a few moments. Davenport fell on his rear and got right up with Killian’s help, laughing the whole time. 

“I know it’s not promising, but let’s give it a few more days before jumping to conclusions,” she said, and they both knew she was full of shit. Brian was either dead or thralled, and it wouldn’t be long before she declared him lost, out of commission, status unknown. She fought the urge to apologize. It would be premature. It would be inappropriate, in this moment, no matter how much Brad deserved the apology. Everyone on this plane did. 

Brad sighed, clutching his ubiquitous clipboard more tightly. “I keep telling myself he’ll be back by Candlenights,” he said in a low voice. “I feel so stupid trying to stay hopeful about it.” 

Lucretia tried not to bite her lip, or to fidget the way she used to every time she was uncomfortable. “There’s nothing wrong with having hope. He may come back to us.” 

“Thank you, Director,” Brad said. Lucretia gave him a tight-lipped smile. 

Davenport and Killian had begun throwing snowballs at each other, and a stray one nearly hit Brad in the arm. He chuckled, scooping up a fistful of snow, and chucked it toward Killian. 

“I’ll get you for that, Bradson!” she yelled, and Davenport laughed as the orcs ran across the snow-covered green, launching snowballs at each other. Killian had a significant advantage given all her training, and it seemed like Davenport was rooting for her too. 

Lucretia allowed herself a smile. Later, she knew Davenport would be exhausted and grumpy, overstimulated from all the activity of the day. He’d leave his snowsuit on the floor of the common area between their quarters, and she’d have to drag him out of the bath after his third time refreshing the water. Though he was capable of dressing himself most days, on days like this, she would often have to help him into his pajamas and into bed. A small price to pay, maybe. All that mattered was that he was enjoying himself, the tiniest bit of good that they could find in this miserable window between the crew all suffering silently together and being finally rid of the Hunger, finally free from their ever-rising death toll, but back to drowning in guilt and more separate than ever.

Davenport turned to look at her, grinning wide, and Lucretia smiled back at him as reassurance, then formed a bubble of a shield in the snow to lift a small clump of loosely-packed snow and toss it gently in his direction, falling two or so feet short. He giggled, always one to enjoy a little playful show of her shields, then turned his attention back to the snowball fight, literally running to join the fray (at least some things hadn’t changed). Lucretia watched for some time, adjusting her scarf to better protect her from the bitter cold. 

She didn’t have him anymore, but at least she could still keep him safe. And she was attached to her Bureau, though she shouldn’t have been. Her employees were dropping like flies. The thought of Brian thralled unsettled her, but dead, especially given how permanent death was for him… well, she couldn’t say it was worse. An awful thought, but if he was dead, at least he wouldn’t kill anyone. But that could be true of anyone, not least of all her or any of her family. 

She wondered, not for the first time, what Davenport would make of the BoB if he was his old self. Some weak and shivering part of herself hoped he would be proud of her, somehow. Manipulating all these people to fail at something she could never do herself. Lying about the scope and severity and cause of all the suffering happening planet-side. But maybe he would have been content to let the deaths continue. Maybe he never thought her plan would do a damn thing to stop the Hunger. That didn’t matter. She would prove them wrong; Lup and Barry, who outright said her plan wouldn’t work, and the rest of her family too, all believing them, all willing to risk hurting an entire plane despite the promise they had made so long ago. 

A fresh flurry of snowflakes fell over the quad, and she shivered. This was the same cold she had endured as a child back home, and sometimes even during the century, but now it was much less bearable. Partly because she was weaker now, fragiler without anyone to support her. And it used to only be a reminder of the material, things her family couldn’t afford: toys, winter coats, heat. Now, it was worse, serving as a reminder of how alone she was, chill and empty all the way through to her soul. She could be bundled up at a Candlenights festival with the whole Bureau, or just watching two of her employees entertain Davenport and relax for once, and she would still manage to feel so cold inside. Knowing the two of them might die. Knowing the Hunger would take all of them if she fails. Knowing that Davenport, _ her _ Davenport, was the silly, carefree gnome before her, and it’s awful. It was all awful, and he would never be hers again. 

It had begun to wear down on her more than ever before, winter making a home for itself in her bones. She might never be warm again, even with her family happy and safe, even with all of her hard work over. The memories of every life she had ever taken, every life she watched succumb to the Hunger and to their relics, and every loved one who she had _ ruined _would always follow her like some horrible frost freezing and killing everything in her wake. 

Davenport fell again, and Killian lifted him into the air while he shrieked with laughter. The whole display was painful to watch. He would have been ashamed and disgusted, or really angered by all of this. It ached down to her core to know this with absolute certainty. When this was over and done, who’s to say Davenport would ever recover? There was certainly little chance that he was ever love her again, or even humor her with base affection and conversation. 

Davenport was suffering, and so was the rest of the crew, but what about Faerun? That was what mattered. 

_ And what about me? _ some selfish part of herself whined, but she stifled it. What of herself? Sure, she had lost every friend she had, either to the Hunger, the relics, or her own actions, but her loneliness was her own doing. Laziness and incompetence, not stopping the Hunger sooner. Inertia and cowardice, not preventing the relics from being made in the first place or intervening sooner. 

And what she did to the crew, to her friends and her lover… there wasn’t a name for that, exactly. It was good and bad. It was necessary and unspeakably evil. She had done what she had to do, what she had wanted to do, and she hated every moment of it. 

One last look at the quad, then Lucretia adjusted her scarf again and headed inside, where she would be safe at least from the weather. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from "tell me there's a reason" by--you guessed it--queer alt-folk band girlyman 
> 
> time has its way with everyone  
you can't stop the circle of the sun  
but you can pull down all the shades  
you can wait for better days  
throw another blanket on  
'til the winter's come and gone
> 
> tell me there's a reason  
for every stupid season  
november freezes everything in sight  
i'm fine all day  
i think of you at night


End file.
